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Giant Bomb |OT 18| See you later, Air Force Gator
- Thread starter Death Metalist
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Started Afterparty on Gamepass and so far I kinda loath it. It looks neat but the dialogue is really grating to me. But I guess I should've expected that since I wasn't a big fan of Oxenfree either.
But checking the site I don't see a Quicklook for the game nor do I remember it being mentioned on a podcast. If they're not playing it it is a bit strange to me because they had like two people involved on their E3 couch this year and were talking about the game there.
But checking the site I don't see a Quicklook for the game nor do I remember it being mentioned on a podcast. If they're not playing it it is a bit strange to me because they had like two people involved on their E3 couch this year and were talking about the game there.
That lines up with what Waypoint said about it. IIRC Rob Zacny was disappointed with how aimless the dialog ends up, in the end, and took particular issue with poor worldbuilding.
Bummed me out, because Oxenfree was a blast.
I'm excited to see these endgame moments I've heard so much about. So far there have been a few cool moments and hats off to turning off your lightsaber in the middle of a fight trick, followed immediately by punking yourself.Yeah Dathomir is done. It's all gravy from here. The last 60 minutes of that game is really strong.
Also, it blew my mind that the guy playing Cal was also the guy that I've seen in Gotham gifs playing the Joker:
Because he's so appropriately bland in the Star Wars thing.
That's not possible because the game is canon.
So they need a guy with a face and a name.
At least that's my assumption
All the old Star Wars games with customisable protagonists and choice-driven stories had 'canonical' versions that'd be referenced by other works. I imagine that Disney would be open to developers taking the same approach now if they wanted to make a new KotOR-esque game.
yeah as far as I'm concerned for a game that sounds like a visual novel to me, the percentage chance stuff doesn't add anything other than frustration. If he puts the stupid hat of +WIS on or whatever the fuck he should be able to pass the check.
Also putting on clothes to pass skill checks is stupid.
In RPGs, RNG-based checks just feel unfulfilling in dialog. Make it a flat stat check. Especially if you can game it by micromanaging equipment.
As Breqesk mentioned, the D&D and HBS approach is a good way to gamify it. Using dice rolls makes more sense for tabletop, where you can branch out and create interesting stories from failure, compared to video games constrained by their critical path. RNG in dialog just encourages gaming it, rather than roleplaying.
In strategy games, though? RNG can be the foundation of something great. Battletech and XCOM embrace RNG and are all the better for it.
As Breqesk mentioned, the D&D and HBS approach is a good way to gamify it. Using dice rolls makes more sense for tabletop, where you can branch out and create interesting stories from failure, compared to video games constrained by their critical path. RNG in dialog just encourages gaming it, rather than roleplaying.
In strategy games, though? RNG can be the foundation of something great. Battletech and XCOM embrace RNG and are all the better for it.
I've tried this in House of the Dead 2, but Time Crisis 2 is a whole new level of difficulty.
That was before Disney tho.
Disney doesn't like stuff they can't sell as a toy and you can't put the face of a customizable protagonist on a coffee mug
I think it works in some cases in Disco. The red checks are the ones you can only try once, and they have interesting things happen when you fail them. If it were a flat check and not percentage-based, you'd never try them and you wouldn't get these interesting fail states or unexpectedly successful long-shots in desperate situations. And given that you usually can't prepare for them, you have to rely on what gear you've currently got on and you've got an incentive to consistently wear gear appropriate to the specific checks you want to succeed in.
White checks, on the other hand, can be retried and rarely have consequences for failing, so the trial/error and clothes shuffling approach is rewarded but not very satisfying.
Also bespoke mocap for cutscenes is way more effective in terms of emotional storytelling than your random ass Mass Effect face scrunching their eyebrows as a mimicry of "anger"
Not that Cal is all that expressive in the game but he has his moments that would probably be a lot more flat were he a custom made face.
The way to get around toyification is to give the main dude/gal a very recognizable and cool suit that is iconic for the series. Like Mass Effect has the default Shepard heads but it's the N7 armor that does most of the heavy lifting in making it feel like a Mass Effect thing.
For me it is not so much the world building but that every line of dialogue has snark for the sake of snark in it. Be that conversations, background talk or even their Twitter stand-in. Some lines could be straight out of Borderlands.
I don't think anything about the end game is interesting or cool at all and all of the revelations about what happens to a specific character are like stock standard expanded universe Star Wars content so I'm not sure why anyone would be impressed by them but obviously your mileage may vary.
it's like life is strange dialogue if it was five times as obnoxious and aged up for college kids, just straight up and down we don't know how people in this age group speak or interact.
Also it doesn't help that you have two characters both of whom you control put in an entirely new situation with character that they've never interacted with before 1 the strength of oxen-free was that you were experiencing not really a friend group but individuals known to the main character and who she had some amount of prior history with because of how their dialogue system work that made it a bit more realistic in terms of the ebbs and flows of the conversations, and getting to cut off someone while they're berating you in a conversation? That's pretty cool to do naturalistically in a video game.
With this game they're doing the whole stranger in a strange land bit where at least a lot of the early game is just passively absorb information while one of the two dipshits you're playing mentions that are sad didn't get to fuck enough or whatever.
Given how precious Disney is about Star Wars I actually don't know why you would imagine that.
If you fail a check it can open up alternating branches that offer different opportunities for suited to your skill-set or just have very basic checks that require slightly more legwork, the only way they should be a problem is if you get hung up on a specific outcome to the situation you're in in which case I guess plan your character better. End of the day it's crpg ass crpg it's has the trappings associated with that genre, if you go into one of those games and your not willing to fuck with what it's offering then drop it.
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Not every check you pass in Disco is "good" and not every fail is bad.
Of course ingrained video-game knowledge makes failing a check feel bad anyway and there's obviously limits to the games reactivity, despite it being pretty good overall.
I also tend to be on the "flat checks are better than RNG" in RPG's. For no other reason than if you spec in a certain direction, you want to see that rewarded. Investing in a build and getting screwed by RNG feels bad. There's limitations to flat checks, but i still prefer them overall.
Of course ingrained video-game knowledge makes failing a check feel bad anyway and there's obviously limits to the games reactivity, despite it being pretty good overall.
I also tend to be on the "flat checks are better than RNG" in RPG's. For no other reason than if you spec in a certain direction, you want to see that rewarded. Investing in a build and getting screwed by RNG feels bad. There's limitations to flat checks, but i still prefer them overall.
Yeah... Honestly, I think I prefer it in games when clothing does basically nothing for your stats. Like, I spent pretty much all of The Outer Worlds just wearing the outfit I thought looked coolest, and I always customised my Shepard's armour in ME2 and 3 based on aesthetics rather than stats. (Another thing I wish games did more often? Separate slots for, like, battle gear and casual clothes, like in Mass Effect 2 and 3. I really dug the sequence in Kasumi's loyalty quest where you had to smuggle in your armour, and get changed out of your swanky party dress before the fighting started. Having both categories of clothes exist, and serve separate purposes, is something I just genuinely really enjoy, and very few games do it in the way I want them to.)
Look, I hate Disney as much as any other massive money-grabbing corporation - seriously, burn em all down - but until I see someone outright say, 'yeah, Disney have banned us from making new Star Wars RPGs (and especially RPGs with custom characters)', I'm gonna go ahead and assume they haven't just arbitrarily decided that an entire genre of games is now off-limits for the licence. Particularly when there's a solution as easy as just having a 'default Shepard' equivalent.
George liked to sell toys, too.
Eh, it's not like I don't see the value in nice, mocapped facial animations, but I'm still more emotionally invested in my Mass Effect crew, or Geralt and Ciri and Yen and co, than I am in, say, Nathan Drake and his sumptuously-animated supporting cast. (Note: this isn't a diss on Uncharted, I actually just played 4 for the first time recently and I genuinely really liked it. Still, though: mocap ain't everything when it comes to effective emotional storytelling.)
You're right about the toyification stuff, anyways. Just give 'em an 'appealing' default face and, more importantly, a sick helmet. Star Wars fans love sick helmets.
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I'm a Star Wars fan and I do love sick helmets. Main baddie of Fallen Order has a pretty sick helmet and outfit and I'm wearing this lame poncho. Pretty jealous to be honest.
ngl Second Sister is lame af and the push she gets over the clearly superior Ninth Sister is weak.
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Only four more days till JJ disappoints everyone like the #boss he is. Somehow the reylo fans and the reylo haters will end up united against him.
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Only four more days till JJ disappoints everyone like the #boss he is. Somehow the reylo fans and the reylo haters will end up united against him.
Sorry to be a pedantic ass, but any story decisions made about Star Wars games are made in consultation with the Lucasfilm story group, not Disney. I think they might even have their own subgroup that deals with videogames. Not sure on that one, though. Even story decisions made in the movies, while having to be eventually signed off by a couple of high up's at Disney are made by the Lucasfilm people.
Subsidiaries such as Lucasfilm and Marvel etc are given a surprising amount of control over their IP.
An RPG would be tricky to do in the current era, though. Basically everything that now comes out of Lucasfilm is considered canon. They would have to mark it as 'Legends' or something like that.
Subsidiaries such as Lucasfilm and Marvel etc are given a surprising amount of control over their IP.
An RPG would be tricky to do in the current era, though. Basically everything that now comes out of Lucasfilm is considered canon. They would have to mark it as 'Legends' or something like that.
Exactly. Sick helmet > Jedi Archie in an ugly poncho. I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of the most marketable toys/characters in Star Wars history featured sick helmets. Heck, Mandalorians as a concept - and The Mandalorian as a show - only exist because someone designed a sick helmet and stuck it in a movie.
I feel like they'd be much more likely to just establish a canonical series of events/decisions for other works to reference/the Wookipedia article, than to mark a new entry in the franchise as a Legends thing, though I suppose either's possible since they're still making TOR.
Either way, I think it's very unlikely that there's some kinda blanket ban on new Star Wars RPGs.
yeah sure but an RPG doesn't require create a character or branching narrative with shifting characterization that's the thing that they're almost definitely not going to allow.
Exactly. Sick helmet > Jedi Archie in an ugly poncho. I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of the most marketable toys/characters in Star Wars history featured sick helmets. Heck, Mandalorians as a concept - and The Mandalorian as a show - only exist because someone designed a sick helmet and stuck it in a movie.
I feel like they'd be much more likely to just establish a canonical series of events/decisions for other works to reference/the Wookipedia article, than to mark a new entry in the franchise as a Legends thing, though I suppose either's possible since they're still making TOR.
Either way, I think it's very unlikely that there's some kinda blanket ban on new Star Wars RPGs.
I mean, a Western-style RPG absolutely does require at least the second thing. Without that, it wouldn't be an RPG, at least not in the sense that I've been using the term in this discussion. I just genuinely don't think that Disney-era LucasArts have issued a blanket ban on making new RPGs. I could be wrong, of course, but I'd be very surprised if I were.
That's exactly what I think it is. Well, that and the fact that EA seem to be struggling whenever they try to make just about anything that isn't a sports game at the moment. It's just never-ending stories of cancelled games, delayed games, and deeply troubled development cycles.
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The only reason Bobba Fett every achieves the cult status he did was because of the sick helmet and outfit. Dude does almost nothing in all the movies only to get thrown in the pit by accident in the most three stooges way possible.
Exactly. Sick helmet > Jedi Archie in an ugly poncho. I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of the most marketable toys/characters in Star Wars history featured sick helmets. Heck, Mandalorians as a concept - and The Mandalorian as a show - only exist because someone designed a sick helmet and stuck it in a movie.
I feel like they'd be much more likely to just establish a canonical series of events/decisions for other works to reference/the Wookipedia article, than to mark a new entry in the franchise as a Legends thing, though I suppose either's possible since they're still making TOR.
Either way, I think it's very unlikely that there's some kinda blanket ban on new Star Wars RPGs.
If he wasn't wearing a cool helmet he would just be the punk that fell in a hole with teeth. I'm pretty sure Storm Trooper toys sell way better than rebel soldiers despite being the bad guys.
I mean if that's the standard you're basing it on I'm going to guarantee that you're not going to see one of those. If we do I'll eat my hat (or someone elses hat).
I mean I actually don't think there's much chance of us seeing one anytime soon, either, but that's because the last time EA published a successful RPG of any sort was in 2014 with Dragon Age: Inquisition, and even that had a really rough development cycle.
I'm sure if EA really, really wanted to do an RPG, they could. But given how their other RPG franchises are doing development wise, i doubt EA is in any rush to greenlight an AAA star wars RPG.
Their Star Wars MMO is still going too, though i'm not sure if that "counts" as modern star wars.
Their Star Wars MMO is still going too, though i'm not sure if that "counts" as modern star wars.
they've got it until 2023
bet it'll be renewed, too
EDIT: beaten to it
Yah, that's basically my thinking. If EA wanted to, Lucasfilm would let them. They don't, though--I wouldn't be hugely surprised if they wanted to get out of the RPG business entirely. Only thing keeping them in is sunk costs and the fact that the Dragon Age name is still pretty marketable. Well, that and they apparently still have at least some small measure of faith in the Mass Effect name, since they've greenlit pre-production on a new game... Hmm, maybe 'get out of the RPG business entirely' is a tad hyperbolic, considering.
But still, with how much they're struggling, not just with RPGs but any big, complex singleplayer games, I'm sure that there's no will to invest the money needed to get something with the Star Wars name attached off the ground. Honestly, I've got no idea what they really want to do with the licence going forwards.
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They can just do what every other AAA publisher is doing: making open-world action adventures with dialog choices, romance options, and skills tress.
Probably significantly cheaper when you don't gotta account for a character creator or party members.
I firmly believe we'll see a Dead Space reboot for next gen.
it's overlooked and not particularly important to anything in the series but Isaac Clarke is actually a slightly older video game protagonist so if they ever do get back the Dead space hopefully they keep following him or if maybe they do a full reboot it's still with an older person as well.
Only publisher I can think of that's making action adventures with romance options rn is Ubi with Assassin's Creed - rlly hoping they go further in that RPG direction with the Vikings game - but yeah, there's no doubt that action-adventures are the safer choice, which is why I think we're very unlikely to get a new Star Wars RPG anytime soon, much as I want one.
it's just important to remember that everything Disney does with Star Wars expanded material is based around "what if we want to use this for a movie at some point"
I was about to say that he can't be that old, but apparently he's 49 by DS3? Clearly I've got a biased interpretation of how older characters are presented in games.
I can only hope - although with everyone from the original team having moved on to different pastures it's hard to imagine what a "new" Dead Space would be. Especially in today's EA.
It's also based around "what if we want to use this for a show on Disney+" which covers a lot more of the smaller stories and characters than movies would.
Also that. I don't really think much of Fallen order but if Monaghan can get that Disney plus bless up it'll have been worth something in the end
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